Recap:
Q: How long is the Gameplay request list and how do you decide what's going into the Game?
A: there is a lot of things that we just throw around that come from lots of different Departements as Gameplay ideas. So a lot of People get a lot of random Input from Design and Progammers sometimes as well. We have lots of Lists on the Backend and Worklogs and stuff. there is a lot of different reasons to decide on a new Gameplay Feature where we basically look at the value, like how many people in the Community like the feature and how much work it actually is.
Q: What Program do you use to Code Planet Coaster?
A: when we're coding most of the Company will use Visual Studio since we have the Licence for that and there is a lot of good Tools we use for that. I personally couldn't live without "Visual Assist" it helps you search for lots of your Database and find things very quickly and see what's related to what when you suddenly change a lot of things. If one little thing gets changed, it propagates through all of your code. We program a lot in "Lua" as well. We have an inhouse "Lua" debugger. It is really useful because while the Game is live running, we can freeze it and just start changing some numbers.
Q: What Flatride or Coaster is your Favorite?
A: 360 Power
Q: what is your biggest inspiration to make such an awesome Themepark Game?
A: I think it's mostly the Themeparks we have. I was at Alton Towers all the Time as a Kid. The Thing is, i'm actually quite scared of Rollercoasters. I much prefer the Flatrides.
Q: How did you get Trees to sway in the Game?
A: We're using a Tool called"Speedtree" and basically it generates a lot of foliage via some Algorithm. It allows you to make nice small details about Trees which can be affected by Wind.
Q: How do you get the Ratings for the Rides?
A: When you enter a Ride into testing mode, we basically track the physics of every Car Seat and "feel" what the G Forces are. So we're getting a lot of Data as they go. We have a Set of Parameters the Designers can play with and Tinker, which add all sorts of Numbers to your Excitement, Fear and Nausea. You want to make it a little bit Gamey... We can tell when you're going against Gravity, and we know that's a big Loop that's super exciting and we apply high points when your Gs go negative. We can also apply little Bonusses with spikes in Nausea during that. These accumulate as it goes. It does sometimes feel like "magic numbers". There is a lot of thought on how certain corners will effect things and we always put in special cases, like the pre-built pieces
Q: Can you tell us more about the evolution of the Pathing system?
A: From the very start of the Game we went through a prototype phase and we tried lots of different ideas. We had a path systems in the Past like the previous Rollercoaster Tycoon Games. We played with the Idea of the Grid system where Things are locked down. We've played with the Idea of splines and things. But the prevailing design thought across the whole Game is Building things up little by little so we wanted to have like a blocky system that was just basically plunking individual bits down one by one and getting the feeling of the Park growing that was really wanted. After we had the Prototype phase we picked an Initial plan to go forward which was the start of blobby block paths. As the Game went on we started to take into account what people wanted. When people started to talk about Plazas we had to make many connections work. That was the biggest evolution I think from the first Alpha. The thing with the Path system is it has to interact with a lot of the Games core Parts. Like, you need the Path system to work for Crowd navigation which has to be fairly efficient to make sure there is lots of flows of people. It has to hook up to Rides and Platforms for these things so people can use them as queues and that kind of business. In the later Stages we added the Square Grids and stuff to help with keeping things nice and uniform. And obviously more things are thought about as we go so there is always room to expand at some point.
Q: How many Lines of Code make up the Game?
A: There's a weird blur between the engine and game. If you want to to say the game in total that would be something like just over two million lines of code I would say. But that is a lot of engine code. There is a lot of Backend work that is always built up on every game we do. But a lot of it was rewritten for Planet Coaster. That was around the area of around 300.000 Lines of engine type Code and then what the Gameplay Team worked with was 100.000 Lines and an extra of 30.000 Lines of Code hanging around.
Q: Can you walk us through your daily Workflow?
A: The Day to Day does kinda change. Right now we're doing new Things... The normal Day to Day is, you sit down and you're catching up what you were doing that last day by checking where you were in the Code. Then we have Gameplay tasks we'd like to do to think about. As a Programmer you spend half your time thinking, half your time actually typing. There is a lot of talking to the Design and Art Team involved on how we are going to change things to make them work in specific ways. There is a lot of Cross Team chatter. What usually happens, you get to a point where you have a Feature and you want to show it off, so you start showing it to the Design Team and other Prgrammers and you get some Feedback. From there on you start iterating on it. There is always things you can improve and change. Other than that there is always bugs that just come in from our QA Team. Sometimes Things will come up and you want to change your attention to those. And you find yourself going back to a code you haven't looked at in a while.
Q: Are there any Parts of the Game you needed to redesign when adding in newer Features?
A: As a Designflow of the Game i don't feel we had to fully scrap and redo a Feature. A lot of the Game evolves and mashes together, you have a lot of things that piece together in different ways so it is always ok to add more and more. It worked out well. There has been couple of Codewise changes, we have done that a few times. The Scenery System for Example has gone through a lot of evolutions in terms of redesigning how the Backend of that works and it is surprizing how many things we went through trying to keep it efficient. Every Time you add a new Feature you have to think of everything and you want to merge in in as many Places as possible.
(I missed one right at the End ^^ fixed now)
I hope it was a little help to you
Maybe proper subtitles will be added by Frontier at some time
